The divided land

Rajmohan Gandhi&rsquos book on the history of undivided Punjab is likely to be an inhabitant of the bookshelves of historians, intellectuals, mustachioed royal households of the Punjab, and others with an investment in the region. Reading it from the perspective of a lay person with no personal ties to the history of Punjab has been full of pleasant surprises.

The book is organised as a strict chronology of events, of the &ldquothen what happened&rdquo variety. This has two possible effects. The first effect is experienced while glancing through the book casually, where the reader is instantly transported back to the horror of fact-laden school-time history textbooks. The hand that turns the page must periodically thump the forehead and rub drooping eyes awake. As it turns out, casual reading is a poor strategy for such a book and may prevent you from reading it altogether. Reading the book with a fine-ish tooth comb on the other hand, is far more rewarding.

In his introduction, the author poses questions, particularly on the legacy of Partition, that invest the Indian reader in the story of Punjab. Gandhi argues that denying ourselves a&ldquoPunjabi history&rdquo that predates Partition, denies us the chance to truly understand ourselves. For many of us, this may be a revelation. By bringing Pakistani Punjab into our Bollywood and tandoori-chicken tainted view of Punjabi culture, the book helps the reader to shed stereotypes before embarking on the complex historical discussion to follow.

We see Punjab as a fertile, frontier land, ruled by the Kushanas, the Mauryas, the Guptas, and the Sultans of Delhi, and fought over by the Mughals, Afghans and British &mdash outsiders all. Amazingly, it is only in 1799 that a &lsquoson of the soil&rsquo ruled Punjab for the first time &mdash the remarkable, one-eyed Sikh ruler, Ranjit Singh. Gandhi discusses why undivided Punjab&rsquos Muslim majority failed to seize power after the death of Aurangzeb. He contends that by collating histories from the time of Aurangzeb&rsquos death, a clearer picture emerges about the growing dominance of the Sikhs, the lack of opposition to British rule on the part of the Muslim majority, why Punjab responded with reluctance to the Gandhian movement, and the tragic events accompanying the Partition of Punjab in 1947 (here Gandhi also documents numerous incidents of &lsquoinsaniyat&rsquo triumphing over bloodlust). The author is expectedly invested in the hypotheses he presents as questions at the beginning of the book. While these may be debatable, what allows the reader to lend him an ear is that he refrains from interpreting the stories he chronicles.